Prudence and Wisdom as High Ways of Happy Life

A Contemporary Interpretation of Aristotelian Ethics

Abstract

Aristotle is indebted to the more precise distinction and elaboration of the concepts of theory and practice. He made philosophy a theoretical knowledge, coining the notion of theory as speculative knowledge of given realities in the world.
However, this theory is no longer a contemplation of Ideas, but of essential and universal realities, arising from an intellectual abstraction of nature. The theoretical knowledge turns to the nature of things to observe their causes and developments.
Alongside theory and in opposition to it, he develops the notion of practice (praxis). In general, it can be said that praxis dominates everything that is operable by man, that is, it concerns properly human action insofar as it is immanent and voluntary. Although theory and practice most often present themselves as completely opposite and independent, it is possible to verify that the Aristotelian system presupposes a certain degree of coherence involving some key concepts of his philosophy. In this sense, the main objective of this seminar is to investigate the ways in which it is possible to think about the relationship between theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge in Aristotle’s philosophy, taking into account excerpts from two of his
main works of maturity, namely, Metaphysics and Nicomachean Ethics.